Programme:
ANTANAS REKAŠIUS - "Music for Strings"
JOSEPH HAYDN - Symphony No.43 in E flat major, Hob. I:43
JOHANN NEPOMUK HUMMEL - Concerto for Violin, Piano and Orchestra, Op. 17
The Lithuanian Chamber Orchestra (LCO) and its artistic director, violinist and conductor Sergejus Krylovas appear in this concert with pianist Anna Geniušienė, a prize-winner of numerous international competitions. She has performed at venues such as the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., Zurich's Tonhalle, Vienna's Konzerthaus, and the La Roque d'Anthéron Festival in France. In 2022, Geniušienė won the silver medal at the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition in the USA. In July of the same year, Musical America magazine named her Young Artist of the Month, and in June 2023, her picture graced the cover of Pianist magazine.
Winning first prizes in the A. Stradivari and F. Krylov has performed at the Berlin and Munich Philharmonics, Vienna's Musikverein and Konzerthaus, Milan's Teatro alla Scala, Tokyo's Suntory Hall, Buenos Aires' Teatro Colón and other venues worldwide. At the 2022 Vilnius Festival, the Lithuanian National Philharmonic paid a special tribute to Krylov by awarding him the 1st degree honorary badge "I Serve Music". With the LKO, Krylov has given more than two hundred concerts around the world.
The concert programme includes Austrian and Lithuanian music. Johann Nepomuk Hummel was a pupil of Mozart, Haydn and Salieri, a friend of Beethoven, Schubert, Goethe and Schiller, and teacher of Mendelssohn. Hummel linked the Viennese classics with the Romantics in his work. Tonight's performance of the Concerto in G major is characterised by light, optimism and the exquisite virtuosic texture and delicacy of both instruments. For many years Hummel's work has been undeservedly forgotten, seemingly covered by the shadow of Mozart's genius, and now it is being resurrected with a new lease of life.
The greatest of the Viennese classical composers, Joseph Haydn, wrote the majority of his scores during his three decades of work in the court of the Dukes of Esterhazy. Since concerts were held here twice a week, the number of works required was large. Thus, for one of the concerts in 1771, Kapellmeister Haydn composed Symphony No 43 in E flat major. During the period of the so-called Sturm und Drang, the composer boldly and originally experimented with various forms and harmonic devices, using the mannered effects of early Classical orchestral music, and his compositions have a very sensual expression.
Antianas Rekašius's urban world-view has led to his music's spontaneity and untold expressiveness, and his compositions are full of humour, mockery and the grotesque, and of hypertrophied stylisations of the music of various eras. According to Donatas Katkus, "this is an openly theatrical expression, a spectacle of sounds, where speaking, the vividness of characters and temperament are more important. Rekašius was a poet of hypertrophy - sensualism, hysterics, nervousness, and at the same time playfulness, surprises, contrasts and oppositions." "Music for Strings No. 2 (1999) is probably the composer's most frequently performed work, and is a great favourite of performers and audiences alike for its glamour.
